


As The Hours Run Away

by FactorialRabbits



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Drowning, Its all fun and games on the grinding ice, Quenya Names, Storms, if a chapter two emerges more characters will be added, injured child, suicidal thinking, though it is able to stand alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 13:42:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21119744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FactorialRabbits/pseuds/FactorialRabbits
Summary: The Helcaraxë is bitter and cold and endless. Elenwë is laughter and warmth and transient.Turgon hoped that warmth would win out. And it did, if only for a time.





	As The Hours Run Away

**Author's Note:**

> My laptop is currently very broken, so typing is very slow and having notes open is hard (so is replying to comments). As such have this shorter piece as tribute. 
> 
> Turgon is not in a great state, but then who is on the ice? 
> 
> Title stolen from Josh Groban's Now or Never. The lyrics are very good for this but it's a little more triumphant than needed. I Fight Dragon's Before I Wake does better for tone. So do a couple of other pieces.

Mornings were always cold on the Helcaraxë, but then so were evenings and nights and noons. There was no noticeable difference between the times of day. Instead, time was split by action: mornings were when you started walking, and evenings whenever you were driven - by fatigue or by storm or by tragedy - to rest. The world was ever dark, lit only by Varda's glistening stars. Or, it was on the rare clear day. While those were as beautiful as they were deadly, more often was the world filled with impenetrable storms.

It was the seventh day of this one, and Turukáno had to wonder if his father even knew in which direction they struggled on anymore. All there was in the world was ice and snow and suffering, life seeping into the frost just as blood flowed from a wound.

And yet the March was almost unbearably lonely. Even when marching between Findaráto and Irissë, still his closest sibling and friend, Turukáno found it so. It was impossible to speak over the sound of the wind, and even offering a smile or gesture meant pushing aside the thick furs of their hoods - the sole thing protecting their lips and noses from frostbite. For hours and hours they would walk, before scraping together in shelters made of ice and huddling therein, praying that morning would find everyone that mattered alive - or one's self painlessly dead.

The one consolation was the constant presence of his family, resting somewhere in the back of his mind, reassuring him they still lived, and giving him some impression of their emotional states.

Still, his lack of practice with osanwë meant he could not ask her what was wrong; the only person he could truly speak to was Elenwë, with the strength of their bond. They did not do so often, not when it required them to concentrate on something other than careful footing. Still, the occasional nudge or joke or reassurance did more for his sanity than he cared to admit.

Even on days like today when she walked apart from him, where there was a little more shelter for both her and their Itarillë from the wind. It had been his turn to walk with their daughter, but when morning came she had objected and refused to be separated from her mother. Everyone was too exhausted to argue, especially when she started crying, and Turukáno was far happier knowing that Elenwë was in the safer position. If she were safe, he could concentrate on himself, and ask would be more fine.

He especially wanted her safe when his subconscience was filled by the familiar, if usually meaningless, sense of dread.

He seemed to have been less successful at shielding his mood than he had intended to be, for silent reassurances floated into his mind.

"Do not worry yourself," he had his mind whisper back. "It is just cold."

"It is always cold," came Elenwë's response, amusement and sympathy and bone-deep weariness seeping through with the words and the warmth of her breath on the back of his neck.

That, and the knowledge that Itarillë had finally let go of her hand to 'help' carry things, only for Elenwë to need to chase her down again.

Turukáno gave her his thanks, and started to defend himself. That he was closer to the edge, that the wind bit more than usual, that snow blew into her face. Her amusement only grew as he failed to express it well, which only made him continue, to feel the warmth of her beautiful laugh. They continued for a little while, Turukáno taking delight and comfort from the essence of her being, and her exhaustion fading into amusement. Growing and changing and passing love between them through making one another smile.

Then the world shattered.

Amusement turned to terror, the sensation of falling, a scream that echoed both along their bond and the wind.

Turukáno turned, and ran.

His companions called after him, one giving chase and the other running away from them, but he paid them no heed. On and on towards where his wife and daughter had been walking - maybe he was wrong, maybe the scream was something else, maybe the pain and fear strong enough even to be felt through the bond with his daughter was a nightmare or a lie, and he would get there, and Elenwë would tease him, and it would be fine - see? Itarillë's bond with him had stopped screaming already... Calmed to nothing and oblivion and the darkness of unconsciousness. Maybe she was sleeping, a nap as someone carried her, Elenwë just scared because someone else -

A gaping chasm yawned down to the sea.

Without a moment's consideration, Turukáno threw off his cloak and dived into the water. It was bitterly cold - somehow even more so than the storm above - seeping from his clothes to his skin to his heart and soul before the screams of his surface-side companions reached his ears. Not that those mattered to him; Elenwë's terror was turning into acceptance as their marital bond weakened and frayed. As she came ever closer to Mandos. And from Itarillë, his little girl, there was only the slightest, faintest suggestion of life.

There was nothing he could do for either of them but swim harder faster unrelentingly towards where they must have gone. To pull them from the water and save then. Failure was not an option, and he banished the thought of just how few people survived being pulled from the treacherous waters. Some, yes, but not many. Not even a third.

He scolded himself for the reminder; what was life worth, if neither would live to share it with him.

Would it not be his fault if they died? The fault of he who convinced them to come? Of course it would.

Something was floating beside him, sinking slower than he swam after his wife and child. The swish of white caught his attention. There was something misplaced, yet also familiar, about it. Turukáno stopped swimming, staring at it as white parted to show gold and red. His mind was slow to put together the pieces, almost as slow as his arms reached out.

He pulled his unresisting child to his chest, clutching a form no warmer than the lonely sea with one arm. With the other he reached out, again trying to pull himself deeper, further, closer to Elenwë.

He could see her. Another pool of swirling white and gold, this on reaching for him as well. Their fingers brushed, deathly white against deathly white. He grasped for her hand, yet the ice in his blood and the ice on her skin... One hand slipped from the other.

Again he tried, and again. Panic broke through the cold, even as he tried again.

Once again, her hand slipped from his grasp.

The gentle pressure of Elenwë's mind found his own. The terror only tightened as he found her too weak for words, only to find he also was. Love echoed in his mind, far fainter than it should have been. The sense of an apology, of making peace, of a goodbye.

She reached up to brush that hand over Itarillë's hair, strong enough to move but too weak to grab on. Her hand missed its mark, instead finding Turukáno's arm, and then their daughter's back. Itarillë's presence seemed a little stronger, if still distant, if still fading away.

Turukáno's heart broke as he realised what Elenwë had done, then shattered as her presence disappeared from his mind entirely.

Still he fought to try and grasp her, to bring her back with him - maybe he was wrong, maybe it was something else, maybe it was his own fear distracting him. He was always wrong about b so many, many things, why not this one too?

How long he struggled to catch her he did not know, again and again as his body grew weaker. But why did it matter? What purpose was there? If she were truly gone... If she were truly gone, how could he continue?

It did not, there was none, he could not.

The last of the air escaped his lungs. He did not care, it did not matter, he would live or die with her-

Itarillë's small form slipped from his grasp. Her lips were blue as death, her skin was near translucent, and her body moved as a puppet made of flesh and ice.

He watched her for long seconds, hands no longer grasping for one who would never respond, mind moving so so very slowly… He could still feel her. Could he-?

Turukáno pulled his daughter back to his chest, and turned away.

With the last of his strength, he abandoned Elenwë, pulling Itarillë towards the surface - and himself along with her. His lungs screamed as his body ached, every part of him getting for a watery grave.

A little further, a little further, a little darkness, a little further...

Turukáno broke the surface, unseeing as he gasped for air and shouting voices melted into one. Hands and arms covered him, demanded his attention, burning on frozen skin. Someones were asking him questions, familiar someones with hair both dark and pale. One pulled him close, took his clothes and replaced them with a cloak. The other tore his daughter from his grasp, yelling as they carried her away.

He did not worry to think of it; the blonde who held him was the wrong one, and even their daughter was now taken from him. Nothing, nothing was left. All was dead and gone and meaningless.

There… was nothing.

And the oblivion seemed almost comforting, next to a frozen form and unending grief and burning, watery lungs.

Too cold to cry, the darkness stole away concerned hands and words and faces. He did not have time to finish his prayer for Mandos to take him before it had consumed everything.

But maybe, if he were truly blessed, it would be answered anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> It may get a part 2 if the fancy takes me. It may also get redone from every other PoV, which would explain things a little more. 
> 
> Also note on what Turgon was referencing Elenwe doing: elven children are dependant on their parent's fëa for physical development. One step further gives the headcanon that elven patents can, while the child is young enough, share some of their inner strength to help their child survive physical trauma. Which is how in this specific verse these things work.   
It'd be explained in Elenwe's part but given I'm not sure any others will ever be written, note here.


End file.
